Sunday, September 26, 2010

After all the butter is gone..

I so need to cook, take pictures and post, but I am struggling to find time.  Not too mention that I am working on cleaning out cupboards and the pantry and trying not to leave an odor, but rather a fragrance afterwards, like that of just baked cookies.  Nothing I have thrown together, or heated up straight from the can,  would be worth looking at or writing about and none of it could be considered fragrant.  I suspect that I am a few weeks away from a 3-can special made up of  pinto beans, ginger and crushed pineapple (YUK!). (Hmmm - wonder what my Grandma would do?) Will have to think about that one for awhile.

And I am almost out of baking supplies, which means it is going to be hard to leave the house filled with that "just baked cookie smell".  In fact, I'm out of butter and trying to decide if I should give in and buy more so that I can bake cookies.  I've been thinking a lot lately about baking cookies and the link to selling my house.

How does that work any way?  I mean really, are you supposed to just whip up a batch of cookies in the time between "the call" and "the showing"?  Who can do that?  And if you can pull it off, what are you supposed to do with the cookies?  Leave them out for the realtor and the potential buyer?  What if they "hate" cookies or are on a diet? What if they want milk with their cookies?  Should I leave a note that says "there's milk in the fridge and a glass in the cupboard, help yourself". Then what, will they just sit and eat cookies and forget to look at the place or would it be possible that my cookies would be so tasty they'd take a big bite, smack their lips and say "I'll take it!"  If only it were that easy.


Monday, September 6, 2010

Herb Crusted Pork Loin Ribeye Roast and Deviled Mashed Potatoes

Herb Crusted Pork Loin Ribeye Roast
Some of you must be wondering if I have any kind of a plan for this blog lately, last week I was going to focus on taking pictures and the week before that I said I wasn't cooking for awhile and then here I am posting a couple of recipes.  So first of all, I definitely need to keep working on my photography skills... I took every picture of this roast in the "landscape" mode of my camera...Ha! ...hardly the kind of thing a good food photographer would do. And about the only thing related to landscape in this photo is the landscape area I personally will cover if I eat everything I cook.  Oh well,  I can only laugh at myself and capture it as a lesson (exactly what my grandma the teacher would expect me to do...learn from my mistakes). Needless to say, I'll keep practicing and hopefully things will get better.  It's true, I don't have much of a plan lately and am taking it one day at a time while the house is on the market, but this weekend I found some time to cook a few things.


With the long Labor Day weekend, it figures not too many people are shopping for houses and so it seemed pretty safe to cook. So while I am not cooking from my Grandma's recipe boxes, I am using times like today to clean out the cupboards and freezer.  Today's "freezer DIG", produced a Pork Loin Ribeye Roast.  I pondered cooking it on the grill, in the crock pot, slicing it in to boneless chops, but ended up adapting a recipe I found on line and roasting it in the oven.  I also had some potato buds that needed to be used as well, so despite the poor photography, things didn't turn out too bad. The Deviled Mashed Potatoes were a good accompaniment to the pork.


Herb Crusted Pork Loin Ribeye Roast
1 2lb Pork Loin Ribeye Roast
1 tbs salt
2 tbs olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbs thyme-chopped (I used fresh, didn't chop too much..just massaged to bring out the flavor)
2 tbs basil-chopped (I used fresh, probably more slightly more than 2 tbs)
2 tbs rosemary (only jarred herb I used)


Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. (My oven runs a little hot, so I  stopped at 450 degrees). Place the Roast on a rack in a roasting pan.  Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl.  With your fingers, massage the mixture on to the pork roast, covering all the meat and fat.


Roast the pork for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 degrees F and roast for an additional 30 minutes.  Test for doneness using an instant-read thermometer. When the internal temperature reached 155 degrees F, remove the roast from the oven.  Allow it to rest  20 minutes before carving.  It continues to cook while it rests.


Deviled Mashed Potatoes
Some where out there is a real recipe for these, but I just make them as I go...no exact measure..make the potatoes per the directions on the box..(It's okay if they are even a little thicker than usual).  In a separate bowl, mix a couple of tbs prepared mustard, with approx 1/2 c. sour cream, add a tsp of sugar and chives..microwave/heat to warm, add to potatoes and serve.  I like mine with a good mustard flavor..adjust the ingredients to your liking.